In order to reduce a burden to establish a production line and effectively improve productivity, a cell producing method based on a visual sensor has been introduced. Due to the improvement in the performance of the visual sensor and recognition technology, the cell producing method based on the visual sensor can be used. The cell producing method based on the visual sensor enables a robot to automatically recognize objects laid around a robot, instead of a worker, and automatically executes a packaging process, an assembling process, and the like, similar to the performance by the worker. An action for actually implementing the cell producing method based on the visual sensor in a field is active.
In the cell producing method, bin-picking of detecting one object region among several objects piled in a pile is used. In the bin-picking, it is very difficult to extract a region of one object, which is to be picked, and a rotation angle of a surface of an object due to a lighting condition of a field, various postures of piled objects, and variety of a material of the surface of the object. Accordingly, it is difficult to apply the bin-picking technology using a previously developed stereo camera or 3D visual sensor to a field due to low recognition performance and reliability.
Particularly, since the piled objects may overlap each other, a partial region of the object may be hidden or the surface of the object may be rotated. This distorts a unique local characteristic of the object. Accordingly, there is a problem in that it is difficult to detect an object region and estimate an object posture.